So, I talked to his teacher and, sadly, it was pretty much how he relayed it, minus the money stuff. But work hard so you get a good education and a good job and are successful, blah blah blah. And she didn't seem to get how it could possibly be classist or racist.

That's sad. When I was a teacher, I told them an education gives you CHOICES. I never put down one job or another.

This morning, Michael treated us to a classification and judgment session on being a meter maid (level 1) vs being an astronaut (level 4). Apparently it was part of their discussion of the book Muggy Maggy.

*head exlodes*

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This morning, Michael treated us to a classification and judgment session on being a meter maid (level 1) vs being an astronaut (level 4). Apparently it was part of their discussion of the book Muggy Maggy.

*head exlodes*

Yikes, meter maids here make good money too, lol. And they have to pass a major background check, have good credit, and pass a psych eval. They're considered law enforcement.

Heather married to my highschool sweetheart 6/7/02 :cop: Mother to Dani age 14 and Timmy age 10 Nadia 1/29 :

So I sort of stumbled in here, but OMG this teacher is disturbing. This is the kinda stuff that makes me want to home school.
And I would have to agree with the PP meter maids and garbage collectors are important jobs, teachers should not be putting them down.

Anyways if meter maids and garbage collectors are level one then what does the teacher consiter him/her self. My DH is a elem. teacher and I would say maybe level two. At least using the teachers opinions.
And what they are teaching about drugs, wow that is crazy. There is a big diffrence between smoking and drinking a beer compared to using heroin and meth. Saying they are similar just downplays how dangourous heroin and meth are.

Oh there is so much about this that bothers me I could rant and type all day, but my LO is crying and I am just going to work myself up thinking about everything that is wrong about all of this.

This morning, Michael treated us to a classification and judgment session on being a meter maid (level 1) vs being an astronaut (level 4). Apparently it was part of their discussion of the book Muggy Maggy.

*head exlodes*

Okay this would really disturb me. A lot. Once I was willing to sort of brush off, but this is now a theme.

~ Mum to Emily, March 12-16 2004, Noah, born Aug 2005, Liam, born January 2011, and wife to Carl since 1994. ~

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My father has often told me that I've wasted my gradiuate and undergraduate education. He would probably classify me as a negative three or four. After all, I wipe tushies all day and don't even get paid for it.

Seriously, though, that's another part of the subtext of this that concerns me. If how much you're paid is what counts and gives you worth, what does that make his stay at home mom?

I actually have the homeschool affidavit papers printed up. I'm just waiting for DH to completely tweak. He's teetering precariously over the edge right now.

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Here we are wasting - WASTING I tell you - that grad school education in order to read "I Want To Be Your Personal Penguin" again and again and again and again and again and...

Totally OT but I am really starting to hate that book.

That book sounds interesting to me.

Nicholas is in the annoying-as-heck non-fiction stage.

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Oh, bleep me. She did it again today! Michael came home and said "You won't be happy, Mama, but Mrs. B said, "Remember! We're trying to get those level four jobs!"

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So...do you think she could send home a list of what level 4 jobs are jsut for those of us following her reasoning?

Poet? Does it matter if said poet is published? How about if poetry is published but bad. Is a poet who writes best-selling volumes of crap a higher level job than an unpublished poet who makes the stars weep with the beauty of her verse? I mean, Emily Dickinson...not exactly widely read in her own day but widely critically acclaimed now.

This is such insanity. And to a little kid, too. I could almost understand (not agree with, but understand) a high school teacher trying to bully students into writing those horrid college essays with threats of a life spent doing "bad" jobs if the kid can't motivate to get into college, but in elementary school??!!

so .. ummmm .... on the dishwasher-astronaut scale, where do you suppose teacher falls?

Is this a matter of education or a percentage game? So we've got hundreds of thousands of dishwashers, but only a few elite make it to astronaut. On that scale, the teacher part isn't ranking so high. Perhaps someone should point out to her that she should have worked harder since she OBVIOUSLY does not have a level 4 job ergo she CANNOT be happy.

I mean this quite respectfully - my father was a teacher and my mother a social worker.

Tell her you hope your son grows up to be a SAHD (see old thread in SAHM forum) and see what she says!

OMG, I will never forget the day my little brother (who is an aspie, so VERY literal) came home from school and told our mom and his dad that they were druggies because they drank alcohol and. My mother hit the flipping roof.

My last year in the AirForce (out of five) I got drug tested for the "first" time 4Xs; three of which I was pregnant for :. Anyway there was a woman testing that day who had to be tested every month for three years (or had been doing it for three years). Apparently the basis for this was that her child (6yo, I think) told the teacher that "mommy and daddy do drugs all the time"........

The drug was tobacco; the parents were smokers.

"It should be a rule in all prophylactic work that no harm should ever be unnecessarily inflicted on a healthy person (Sir Graham Wilson, The Hazards of Immunization, 1967)."

That is pretty whacked. I've heard some kooky, self-important edu-speak before, but the "level 4" jobs thing is peculiar.

Although I have noticed that since dd started first grade, she has been speaking more about learning to read and so on as a prerequisite to getting a job.

We were talking about kids who don't have much in the way of books at home, for whom reading is just this phonetic exercise one goes through at school, and she said that they would not be able to get jobs.

I dealt with it by saying that no, chances are they would learn to read at school and get a job when they were older, but that it was sad that their introduction to books was just sounding things out in class and reading things like "The car is red," while at home she spends lots of time looking at fairy tales, listening to chapter books, and so on...she did seem a little perplexed by that and insistent, so I think the teacher has been making a connection between diligently sounding out words in grade 1 and future employment, which is pretty lame.

DH is going to call her next week. He was just promoted to senior pastor and is up to his eyes with stuff to do, so I'm hoping he can find time. I would do it, but I've already spoken to her once and it apparently did no good.

We're deprogramming him here at home and are probably going to bring him back home. I know homeschooling isn't the answer for everyone, and I know we're really blessed to be able to consider it. And it isn't just this, but the realization that this is just the way things are and we probably won't be able to change it.

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We would pull him out soon. DH isn't totally convinced, but he's getting there. This one episode is just a symptom of the disease, really. This constant "don't get a question wrong, because it will go on your permanent record and ruin your life FOREVER!!!!" is wearing on Michael. He's tested on everything. Even his library books, he has to take an AR test on, which has had negative effects on his reading. He doesn't take risks or pick books that look interesting; he picks books based on their level so he can pass the test. It makes me sad, because he used to be such an eager little learner. Now he just plays it safe.

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We would pull him out soon. DH isn't totally convinced, but he's getting there. This one episode is just a symptom of the disease, really. This constant "don't get a question wrong, because it will go on your permanent record and ruin your life FOREVER!!!!" is wearing on Michael. He's tested on everything. Even his library books, he has to take an AR test on, which has had negative effects on his reading. He doesn't take risks or pick books that look interesting; he picks books based on their level so he can pass the test. It makes me sad, because he used to be such an eager little learner. Now he just plays it safe.

That's so sad. I hate how traditional school just kills the joy kids naturally have in learning. We have "good" schools in our town, but I refuse to send the kids to public school because I know that even the best regular classroom is trapped with these NCLB requirements now and that kids end up afraid.

You can see it even in middle and high school students. 6th graders will still take a risk and interpret poems in whatever way seems best to them, but by high school students just try to predict what answer you WANT them to give and parrot it to you. So sad. I can't tell you how much time I spent in the classroom trying to get kids to believe that, no, I didn't want them to tell me what I thought about the book. I knew what I thought. I wanted to know what THEY thought.

I know that even the best regular classroom is trapped with these NCLB requirements now and that kids end up afraid.

That's exactly it. We started out homeschooling, but I put Michael in school in first grade. His first grade teacher was a nightmare, and his second grade teacher was a miracle, but even she was extremely hemmed in by NCLB. This teacher seems midway between nightmare and miracle, but we're realizing it's a systemic thing. I wish we could afford to send him here, if we had to send him somewhere, but I really do long to have him back home.

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I am a teacher and that level 4 thing sounds like total crap! Honest work is what's important, not levels. By the way, I'd like to see a school function for one week without a janitor. Level 1 doesn't sound so bad now, does it?

Oh, I'm mad and ready to not send him to school tomorrow and I'm not even his mom! lol

Seriously, what a load of horrible expectations and connotations she is drilling into their poor heads. My brother barely finished high school, took only a couple college classes and worked his way up and through lots of jobs meeting new people and taking new opportunities as they came and now he is far more successful than people with degrees. He's happy, he made stellar money at his previous job, now he started his own business and supplements it on the side by doing contract work from his previous career. Opposed to me who went to college got the degree, worked in my field (education) for a few years then went into all sorts of offshoots of traditional ed and now I'm a sahm. I never once made 1/2 of the $ my brother did in his profession. He's not a ceo or anything either, actually he was a mechanic for a race team in Indianapolis.